Fatal Frame / Project Zero - Maiden Of Black Water : We Get Terrified In Our Next Review

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water originally released back in 2014, before then getting a remastered version for the Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S, and PC.

In the game you play as various different characters who all seem to posess the ability to see spirits and ghosts. However, their only way of being able to protect themselves from these spirits is to use a special camera known as the Camera Obscura.

For veterans of the series you will no doubt know all about this special camera and its capabilities.
Unfortunately the camera itself has not really changed much in being able to produce anything special except for taking photos. Which is essentially what a camera does but since this specific title is the eighth one in the series, it all feels rather basic at this point.

You can still upgrade the camera using a range of different abilities and modifications, such as the various different lenses that you can find. Some of which deal better damage, whilst others can heal your character.

As with the past Fatal Frame titles, you can also find various different types of photo film.
However, these, as perhaps expected, can be quite difficult to find and get a lot of in terms of quantity and quality. Still just like with the lenses they can also be used to increase the damage dealt to any hostile spirit you come across.

The environment is great, it feels dark and gives off a rather spooky and chilling feeling. Just how horror titles should be in a sense. The suspense and the feeling of being alone in a world full of horrors and mystery is certainly appealing.

Being a game about ghosts and spirits, there is an optional objective and one that has been in all of the games so far.
That being the ability to photograph any sudden ghost sightings that you may come across, in doing so you will gain extra points.
These points can then be totalled up at the end of each chapter and it helps contribute to your overall chapter rank.
However, these ghost sighting are quick and sudden so be ready.

As for the story, well that can be rather confusing at times. However, a lot of the story takes place at Mt. Hikami, where people go and never come back.
Without going into too many spoilers, Mt. Hikami has a mystery regarding deaths and tragedy.

OVERALL:

I personally cannot compare this title to its original title from 2014, as I never played it. Though, being a remaster it does still contain everything you would expect, even the bonus chapter that features the Dead or Alive character, Ayane has also been thrown into the game. Speaking of the Ayane chapter, it does differ a lot from the rest of the game. You also do not get the camera to use, instead Ayane comes with her own way of taking on the various different spirits instead.

The game can be considered as being rather long, featuring a total of fourteen chapters to play through plus at least three extra chapters too. A few of which felt like a filler chapter, where nothing much was going on and all around it got rather boring quite fast. However, for the majority of the game, it was fun and I personally enjoyed it.

As for how it relates to the previous titles, well I have not played a Fatal Frame title prior to this one, since the original Fatal Frame got released. Though I did dabble a bit in the second game too. So unfortunately I can’t say much about this one. However, there is a particular character within the game that does seem to have some degree of relationship to a previous character, which I enjoyed and did not know about at first. Otherwise, story wise, most of it seems to be its own thing.

Can’t really fault this game too much, apart from the fact that as time went on and nothing really big was happening, plus we also saw the same spirits all of the time. It can get boring after a while but overall this particular title is still worth a shot!

Developer: Koei Tecmo
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Release Date: October 28th, 2021
Platforms: Switch, PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, XBox One, XBox Series X/S
Genre: Survival Horror
Main Story Length: 14-17 Hours
Platform Reviewed On: Playstation 5
Overall Rating: 4/5

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Selphie1999Gaming

Admin at Selphie1999Gaming

The owner of Selphie1999Gaming.com.
Has been playing video games for her entire life so far. Grew up with the Sega Megadrive. Her favourite games include both Resident Evil 2 (OG) and Final Fantasy VIII.
She now writes articles about video games.

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